stitch markers – Knit-Spin-Quilt

News & Upcoming Shop Hiatus

Thank you to everyone who came by to say hello at Vogue Knitting Live in New York City! It was a whirlwind of a weekend, and great fun, even if it was a bit overwhelming at times. If I was distracted, I apologize: there was an awful lot going on!

It’s been a busy winter here in Brooklyn! I have received funding from my graduate program to go abroad for three months to do research on medieval libraries!

This means that I’m going to have to shut down the shop from February 22 to June 1, 2019 — there’s no way for me to fulfill orders from the archives in London, and as a one-woman operation, I don’t have anyone to do it for me.

If you’ve been on the fence, now is your chance to get something before the shop closes for three months. (While I’m gone, those of you in New York can still find my bags and stitch markers at Knitty City and Woolyn in New York City, and at The Endless Skein in Cold Spring, when it opens!)

Before I go, though, I am excited to have some box bags back in stock. These bags are fully lined in white or low-volume print fabrics, have a handle long enough to loop over your wrist or (my favorite) to attach to a clip and hang from another bag, and use long-pull zippers with broad blunt teeth, the better to not snag your yarn.

There are also a variety of sock-size drawstring bags and shawl/sweater-sized drawstring bags: the medium (sock) bags will hold two skeins of yarn, but are most often used for socks; the larger bags are good for larger projects (though perhaps not your bulky sweater-coat, as they top out at about four skeins of yarn unless you shove).

Two drawstring bags and a box bag on a quilting cutting mat

There are also new rainbow llama stitch markers. Do you love coffee? Tea? Wine? There are stitch markers for those interests too.

Four sets of knitting stitch markers featuring silver charms themed around tea, coffee, llamas, and wine

I’m excited about archival research, and can’t wait to share pictures of England with you on my Instagram while I’m gone: @knitspinquilt

Remember — the last day to place an order before I leave is February 22!

Collaborative Kit Goes Live!

KnitSpinQuilt is branching out into collaborations with yarn dyers!

This very first kit is a project bag, yarn, and pattern collaboration with Yarn Over New York and Gannet Designs. Customize it and make it exactly what you want: you get a project bag, one or two skeins of yarn, a shawl pattern designed for this yarn, and a stitch marker.

The project bag – a medium drawstring project bag sewn by Alisa of KnitSpinQuilt – is made from a fabric whose pattern was designed by Naomi of Gannet Designs. The lovely, lovely yarn is dyed by Jessie of Yarn Over New York.

You get to customize the kit in several ways. We’re offering it in three different colors (green, blue, and purple) and two different yarns: Times Square Sock (merino/nylon) or Astoria (alpaca/merino). Choose your color, choose your yarn base. Finally, choose whether you want one skein of yarn, or two skeins of yarn.

The kit comes with a pattern for a brand new shawl: the Semiramis Semicircular Shawl, designed by Alisa of KnitSpinQuilt using Gannet Designs lace patterns. You can make a shawlette with one skein of yarn, or a large shawl with two skeins. You’ll also get a custom matching stitch marker as a little bonus.

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You can pre-order the kit at Yarn Over New York’s new website. Orders will only be open for two weeks, and the kits will ship by August 20. You’ll receive a Ravelry download code for the pattern as part of your purchase — don’t have Ravelry? We’ll print it and mail a physical copy of the pattern to you with the yarn — just make a note in your order.

Summer Critters Update

Summer critters and news about Puerto Rico fundraising.

KnitSpinQuilt is celebrating the incipient summer of 2018 with woodland creatures! Hedgehogs and owls have simply stolen the show for this particular update.

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These prints — especially the hedgehogs — were really popular at the Moms and Makers Market on May 12 in NYC. If you’re a fan, check the shop out ASAP!

Each bag is fully lined with white Kona Cotton fabric, and each color of top is cut and sewn in batches of four (for the medium bags) or two (for the large bags). When each color of these bags is gone, it’s gone until the next batch is sewn up, so grab them before this shop update sells out!

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As always, 30% of the purchase price for everything you buy from KnitSpinQuilt is donated to the Hispanic Federation for Puerto Rico disaster relief efforts, which are still sorely needed even after all this time: The projected deadline for 100% restoration of power in Puerto Rico has passed, and restoration of power has really not been achieved.

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Celebrities such as Lin Manuel Miranda (author and star of Hamilton) have been championing this cause: I figure it’s the least I can do to donate a bit to the cause of helping people get their homes and everyday lives back. I’ll be posting an article about the situation in Puerto Rico later this week: keep your eyes peeled, because it’ll include other ways people can help out, as the next hurricane season approaches all too soon.

Sewing for Flint

I’ve been doing a lot of sewing recently, mostly project bags. Most are Spoonflower fabric, and all are repeatable.

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I’ve also made some new stitch markers. The oak leaves are one-offs, but the little green balls glow in the dark, and I have other colors of those that I’ll be making up soon.

All are available (or custom-orderable) at KnitSpinQuilt on Etsy where all money raised through sales in February and March of 2016 are being directed to the Flint Child Health & Development Fund.

Since I last posted about this we’ve raised $317.50!

But – and here’s where I ask your indulgence – sending monetary aid isn’t enough.

Please, if the issue of lead levels as high as 4,000 parts per billion (it’s an emergency at 15 ppb!) scares you, if the idea of an un-elected “emergency manager” poisoning the water supply of an entire town who had no recourse, no way to vote him out of office makes you mad, write your elected officials! If enough of us make enough noise, we can get Michigan’s government to move faster on this horrifying issue. If you don’t live in MI, you may not be able to write to those senators, but you can write your own and let them know you care and want them to care, too.

I’ve done so. It’s a small thing, but it’s how our democracy is supposed to work.

In the mean time, however, I’m going to keep making things, donating my time and my stash to something that I truly believe is a national disaster and crisis. With your help, if you like the things I make and buy them, we can do something small – and possibly something really meaningful – for the people of Flint, MI, who are really hurting. And you get a nifty handmade gift out of it, too!

Fundraising for Flint, MI water

All income (not profits: 100% of income) from January and February 2016 will be donated to Water Aid for Flint, MI, via the The Mission of Hope Shelter and Pastor Bobby Jackson, and the GoFundMe setup here: https://www.gofundme.com/rjp53vz8

Help me raise money to provide water to the kids of Flint, MI, where the water has dangerously elevated lead levels.

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KnitSpinQuilt on Etsy.

STEM education and scholarship fundraiser

I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about Ahmed Mohamed, the Irving, TX 9th-grader who took a home-made clock to school and was arrested for a bomb, then charged with making a hoax bomb — even though he only ever called it a clock.

Ahmed has received a huge outpouring of support on social media — just check out #IStandWithAhmed on Twitter — and invitations from the President, NASA, and too many other places and people to count.

But there are still far too many other children in the USA who face systemic inequalities and prejudices that get in the way of them making home-made clocks or learning about biology, or becoming engineers. Helping Ahmed is the first step: helping correct some of the educational barriers is another step.

So I’m running a fundraiser to raise money for STEM education. Here’s how it works:
-You buy something from my ETSY store, KnitSpinQuilt
-I mail it to you
-I donate the entire purchase price to charity

That’s it! You get stitch markers or a project bag or earrings or handspun yarn, and I donate the full amount you paid toward scholarships for low-income children to go to the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) summer program run by Johns Hopkins University.

So far, I’ve raised $133.00 – I’m hoping to hit $250. I’ll put an image in the sidebar, and together hopefully we can help send a kid to CTY to learn that there are lots of other geeky, talented, academically-minded kids just like them, regardless of their family’s income.